The Nokia-born and now startup-based hit app Sports Tracker will launch on Windows Phone in November.

The much-anticipated Windows Phone version of Sports Tracker comes with the category-leading tracking features familiar from the Symbian, Android and iPhone versions. In addition to tracking the app comes with a comprehensive training diary, ability to share workouts to Facebook, Twitter and the Sports Tracker online community as well as cloud backup of tracked activities to sports-tracker.com.

“We are extremely thrilled to bring Sports Tracker to Windows Phone. We see Windows as a very exciting platform especially now with the advent of Nokia’s amazing new Lumia -series of Windows Phone devices.” says Mr. Ykä Huhtala, CTO and one of the founders of Sports Tracker.

App features

• Full tracking features as in the award-winning Symbian app and iPhone / Android: Distance, Duration, Speed, Average speed and pace, Max speed, Energy spent (kCal)
• Training Diary for workout data analysis
• Diary sync to sports-tracker.com service for further analysis
• Sharing of workouts to Facebook, Twitter and the Sports Tracker community

Sports Tracker for Windows Phone will launch in November 2011.

Sports Tracker app for Nokia N9 now available

To further celebrate “Nokia week” Sports Tracker for Nokia N9 is now available as a free download from the Nokia Store. The app comes with the familiar great tracking features and support for the new Sports Tracker Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor enabling you to get more out of your tracked workouts.

App features

• Full tracking features as in the award-winning Symbian app and iPhone / Android: Distance, Duration, Speed, Average speed and pace, Max speed, Energy spent (kCal)
• Training Diary for workout data analysis
• Diary sync to sports-tracker.com service for further analysis
• Sharing of workouts to Facebook, Twitter and the Sports Tracker community
• Support for the Sports Tracker Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor (available from shop.sports-tracker.com)

Download: Sports Tracker for Nokia N9

Lumia 800 on the N9

Nokia recently announced their first two Windows Phones, the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710. The former is a Nokia N9 look-alike that is being widely acclaimed as the first true Windows Phone. Of course, that is contestable depending on how you want to look at it.

Anyway, Nokia has provided an interactive app available for Symbian3 smartphone users to experience the all-new Nokia Lumia 800 with Windows Phone on their Symbian device. It is a great way to let current Symbian users get a glimpse of the core features that this Nokia Windows Phone brings to the table.

Take a look at the screenshots that I took off my Nokia N8 running Symbian Belle.

Download Page in Nokia Store

Swiping up the homescreen to reveal the main menu

Windows Phone Main menu - Scroll vertically only

Windows Phone Marketplace

Windows Phone People Hub

People Hub - what's new in social networking

Internet Explorer Mobile 9

QWERTY keyboard in Portrait

The app does not do a complete demo of the features of Windows Phone. The only sections (or Hubs) that are demoed are: Internet Explorer, marketPlace, and People. Still, it gives a fair experience of how Windows Phone works.

The “Nokia Lumia 800″ app is available for download from the Nokia Store.

Over at Nokia Innovation, kelvin has published a A Symbian Users Wish List For Windows Phone.

Seeing that I have been contemplating the pros and cons of a move from the N9 to the Lumia 800, it sounds just right that I should publish a wish list of mine too.

Mass Storage Mode

I absolutely want to be able to plug in my phone to a PC to copy files across both devices without syncing via Zune.

Proper Multi-tasking

I don’t want background apps to freeze. I want the good old Symbian-style multi-tasking.

Bluetooth File Transfer

Please give us full Bluetooth transfer functionality. Bluetooth being available for pretty much nothing else but headset connectivity is lame. This is Sparta 2011!!

If you read Kelvin’s wish list, you’d see that we have different things on our individual lists. As far as I am concerned, Windows Phone’s weakest link is local connectivity.

Imagine that you have taken some great photos on your device and a friend asks you to send them to his device by Bluetooth. Duh!

If Microsoft would add the above-listed features to Windows Phone, they would have a product that makes long-time Symbian users really, really, really comfortable.

What do you think? What features would you like to see on Windows Phone?

Today, Nokia announced their very first Windows Phone smartphones. The two announced devices run Windows Phone 7.5 Mango.

Nokia Lumia 800 – light fantastic

The Lumia 800 is the amazing N9‘s identical twin, sharing the same body with it. from Nokia’s official announcement:

The polycarbonate body is all subtle curves topped with a bright AMOLED ClearBlack display with toughened glass stretching to the sides of the phone. The Back, Start and Search buttons on the front of the screen are set in the glass, so there are no interruptions to the smooth surface. The phone comes in three vivid colours: black, cyan and magenta. On the back, there’s an eight-megapixel auto-focus camera with Carl Zeiss optics. The camera also shoots HD video at 30 frames per second. Social sharing or online storage can happen automatically or with two taps on the interface.

Inside, there’s a 1.4GHz processor and graphics co-processor driving the operating system to deliver a silky-smooth user experience. There’s 16GB of internal user memory, with cloud computing integrated to offer 25GB of free SkyDrive storage for your music and pictures. Communications are handled by a quadband reception, up to HSDPA 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth. Talktime is rated at up to 13 hours, or standby for up to 335 hours. It measures 116.5 x 61.2 x 12.1mm and weighs 142g.

The Nokia Lumia 800 will be available from November in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK, across 31 operators. The estimated retail price is €420 (about N93,000), before any local taxes or subsidies. Other territories including Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan will see the Nokia Lumia 800 before the end of the year, with even more markets following in early 2012.

Source

The Lumia 710 costs significantly less, but is no pushover either.

The Nokia Lumia 710 offers an accessible entrance to Windows Phone, enhanced with features that bring Nokia’s great strengths to bear. It’s a bright and fashionable phone, offering customization through exchangeable back covers and thousands of apps.

It comes in black and white varieties, with the choice of black, white, cyan, fuchsia and yellow back covers. The 3.7-inch screen offers an 800 x 480-pixel resolution with a ClearBlack TFT for great colors and readability even in bright sunlight. At the rear, there’s a five-megapixel auto-focus camera with an LED flash. The camera can also shoot HD video at 30 frames-per-second.

Packing the same 1.4GHz processor, hardware acceleration and graphics processor as the Nokia Lumia 800, the Nokia Lumia 710 offers exceptional performance at this price point. Inside there’s 8GB of user storage memory and 512MB of RAM. It has quadband radio reception, 3G up to HSDPA, WiFi and Bluetooth, so the communications options are covered. The phone measures 119 x 62.4 x 12.5mm and weighs 125.5g.

Available from the end of 2011, the Nokia Lumia 710 will first appear in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan before becoming available in further markets in 2012. The Nokia Lumia 710 is expected to cost around €270 (about N60,000) before any local taxes or subsidies.

source

What do you think of these first WP offerings from Nokia?

I was a participant at MTN Nigeria’s Ideas Forum held at the Southern Sun, Ikoyi yesterday. It was a very engaging time during which we discussed mobile apps development in Nigeria and MTN’s proposed mobile app store, as well as ways that the ecosystem can be enhanced.

I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with a number of great guys from strategic companies, including Opera and Microsoft.

I have it on good authority from the Microsoft official that Windows Phone is coming to Nigeria officially – and soon. So many people have been asking me this question, so I guess your blood pressures can return to normal now – or go up even more from the anticipation.

Oh, and I was told that the Nigerian launch is not going to be soft, so expect a lot of push from Microsoft here.

Meanwhile, do not forget that my written review of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango is on the way.

The guys at Engadget have published leaked images and a video of Nokia’s first Windows Phone device, codenamed Sea Ray.

“Sea Ray” has a similar build to the N9. I like WindowsPhone, but I don’t see how it beats what I have seen of MeeGo on the N9. I wish that Nokia would commit more to MeeGo than make it an experimental platform. But if wishes were horses….

The video recording was from an event at which Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, asked those in attendance to put away their cameras and then presented the device. But note how clear, sharp and steady the video is. That recording seems like a professional job. My take is that this is an official recording leaked on purpose. In my opinion, he wanted this to get out.

One comic theory that is floating around is that Mr. Elop was shocked at the glowing reception that the MeeGo-powered N9 got and thought to douse it by leaking something on WP7.

No details of specifications are available yet.

You can watch the video here.

It is fast becoming the age of the smartphone. Smartphones are selling like hotcakes and taking more bites out of phone sales statistics. Still, one sore issue that is observed is that of battery life.

What do we expect? 4-inch touchscreen displays, always-on data, multi-tasking, +1GHz processors and a host of other features all mean that there is a greater demand on our smartphones’ batteries.

Android OS is one of the greatest culprit in this regard. Apparently, we need to make our robots more energy-efficient. Those droids simply guzzle power like mad.

Another power-inefficient mobile OS at the moment is Windows Phone. I have used two WP7 devices, and they both suck badly with regards to battery consumption.

Another battery sucker is Maemo (evolving into MeeGo). As much as I loved the N900, I had to let it go because of the battery life.

I also owned and used a Palm Pre running WebOS, and it was disastrous, battery-wise. It certainly was the worst case of poor battery life that I had ever encountered. Whether this is a WebOS trait in general or it was an isolated case, I have no idea.

The Winners
It is no news that Symbian has remained legendary with regards energy efficiency. That old horse just can’t be beat. Devices running Symbian keep going long after the average Android, Windows Phone and Maemo toy has given up.

Sadly, Symbian is on the way out, though not until 2016. I will repeat – Symbian OS is too good to dump. It does so many things well and has improved so fast and markedly that it should be retained. It doesn’t seem to make much sense dumping it now when it’s just getting better and better.

PS: In adopting WP as a primary smartphone platform, do we take it that there should be a secondary? Why not? Retain Symbian as secondary, and problem solved.

Anyway, life goes on. Moving away from Symbian, there is only one other major smartphone OS that delivers exemplary battery life that I am aware of. Yes; iOS.

iOS has come a long way in terms of battery life. The first generations of iPhones had piss-poor battery life, but things have changed dramatically.

With more features now, iOS has been optimised to deliver even better battery life across both iPhones and iPad ranges.

For those that want to stay truly mobile i.e. Not tied to carrying a cable around and looking for something to plug their smartphones to by mid-day, you are better off looking in the direction of Symbian or iOS. That’s just the way it is. For now.

Hopefully, we shall see better power optimisation on other platforms in a little while. In the meantime, if I had no Symbian device that meets my needs, and I had to look elsewhere right now, I am afraid it would have to be in the direction of Steve Job’s reality distortion field. Battery life is at the top of my mobile requirements. It just doesn’t matter what a mobile device can do if it doesn’t let me do it away from a charger.

Your thoughts, guys?

Upfront: when next you are tempted to say, “But So-and-So phone does the same thing as that phone does“, please resist the tempation. Until you have actually used a device/platform in the same way as has been described by someone, you do not know whether or not things square out. The joke might just be on you.

There has been so much noise about Android and the devices that run on that platform. Of recent, Dayo and I have been opportuned to use two Android devices intensively – the Galaxy Tab and the HTC Desire HD.

On paper and at first appearance, it didn’t seem that there was any incompetence on the part of those devices. That was until we got working with them.

Attaching Files to Email
The Galaxy Tab could not attach a 19MB PDF file in an outgoing mail. It kept responding that the file size exceeded the maximum limit.

Odd, but the Desire HD handled the same file without any issues. Why the disparity in performance in two devices running Android v2.2?

Also, with tablets being pushed as netbook replacements for some categories of users, why such a silly limitation? Also, one would have expected the Desire HD to have that limitation, if at all, and not the Tab.

Need I say that the Nokia N8 – widely maligned as “underpowered and dated” – has had no problems with email attachements of any size that we have ever thrown at it?

Copying Text in Email
We received a mail and needed to copy some portion of it for pasting elsewhere. For the life of the two of us, the Galaxy Tab offered us no such option to copy the text we needed.

While the Desire HD allowed us to copy text in the text editing section, the option did not exist in the body of forwarded mails.

In one instance, I had to pop out my Symbian-powered Nokia N8 to retrieve the mail, copy the needed section and paste into the required website, then load the website on the Desire HD to complete the editing. Duh.

Excuse me, but why should we have two super-duper Android 2.2 devices in our hands and ever need to look for something else in order to be able to copy text from a forwarded email?

Yes; Android has copy-and-paste but certainly not in the superb way in which it is integrated on Symbian or even BlackBerry. We have not had one situation in which we could not copy text on a BlackBerry device.

So…
Till date, no mobile platform meets my mobile computing needs like Symbian does. If I wanted a superb user interface without lots nof functionality or features, I’d give my cash for a WindowsPhone device. In my opinion, it is the best mobile UI out there for now. But if I want devices that do everything that I need, the logical platform is Symbian. In this regard, iOS doesn’t cut it for me. Android does not either. While BlackBerry (at least the Torch 9800) does, the unreliable BIS from our network providers simply mean its no good either.

PS: I keep wondering; BIS is a business-centric service. Why are our networks unable to provide the kind of reliability that business users need?

It is the versatility of Symbian that will see me upgrading to the Nokia E7 as soon as it hits our shores. The 4.0-inch display and QWERTY keyboard are strong attractions for me. And I am likely to continually give my vote to Symbian till other platforms meet up in terms of versatility, or till Symbian is certified dead.

Dayo and I had to make a quick trip to the rock city, Abeokuta, yesterday afternoon. Though I was violating the doctor’s orders to get some rest, the trip was an absolute essential. The drive to the city was a pleasant one as we chatted about everything under the sun.

Arriving at Abeokuta, I thought, How good would Ovi Maps be in leading us to our specific destination? Detailed drive guidance in Lagos is one thing. Outside of Lagos is another.

Quickly, I whipped out my Nokia N8, launched Ovi Maps, selected “Drive”, and typed in “Quarry Road”. GPS lock took place in less than a minute. In a few moments, that sweet female voice kicked in as the app drew out a route for us to follow.

I did know the way to our destination road and could tell that the directions given were good, though not my preferred route. Because we were pressed for time, I opted to take my preferred route and so ignored the initial directions. Ovi Maps promptly recalculated and drew up another set of directions that accurately matched my preferred route.

Yes; it was a simple and brief test, but again it underscored how good and helpful Ovi Maps can be when you are out and about. With Ovi Maps, the maps are pre-installed on your device and so no data connection is required. Ovi Maps is also free.

If you do a lot of travelling, you should consider Ovi Maps. The mobile app is currently available on Symbian smartphones, and later this year or early 2012 on Nokia Windows Phone smartphones as well.

Of recent, Nokia and Microsoft have been cuddly-cuddly. Last year the two firms announced their alliance which was to see them collaborating on the design, development and marketing of productivity solutions for mobile professionals.

Well, take a look at this chart picked from a recently leaked presentation on Nokia’s software and services plans, the company mentions Windows OS along with the Series 40, Symbian and Maemo.

This is unconfirmed yet, but if in fact we will be seeing a Nokia-made Windowsphone, it will be the best thing that has happened to the Windowsphone OS and its descendants in years!

Read the full news item: Who saw that coming: Nokia working on a Windows phone?

Matthew Miller is one of the most objective writers around in the world of mobiles. He is one of the few people who understands the mobile space and is not bitten by fanboyism for any platform.  In other words, he is like me. He is kindred spirit. When I need to get away from all the hype and noise, I read Matthew Miller’s blog, Smartphones and Cellphones.

Mr. Miller has owned and used devices from vitually every platform and clearly understands their strengths and weaknesses. One of his owned devices is the new HTC HD2, a Windows Phone. You know, the one with a monster 4.3 inch display and monster specs. But his expertience with this flagship Windows Phone device has resulted in his giving up on Windows Phone. The user experience simply has him frustrated.

Matthew writes:

I have spent the last 10 days or so in near constant frustration every time I tried using the HD2 and I am just tired of the lock screen freezes, scattered operating system menus and pieces, inconsistent media experiences, limited 3rd party application availability, and more.

While Matthew is only one person, it is a sad day for Windows Phone when someone as level-headed as he is gives up on their platform. It speaks volumes.

Of recent, I was shopping for a smartphone for long-term use. By long-term, I mean at least 365 days. My options included three Windows Phones – Sony Ericsson X2, Samsung B7610, and an HTC Touch Pro2. Honestly, I couldn’t get over the vanilla interface of the Windows Phone OS, yet every available interface modification by individual manufacturers presented issues that I found difficult to overlook.

Either the modifications introduced inconsistencies in the user interface (one of the reasons I loathe using Symbian S60 5th Edition at the moment), or they consumed resources that hampered usability in some way e.g. the B7610 – having two media players, two calendars, two contacts apps, et al. For every stale-looking app in Windows Phone, Samsung created a pleasant-looking alternative co-existing with the vanilla version on the device. How intuitive is that?

I eventually chose something apart from Windows Phone.

Like several others, Matthew has walked. Too many people have walked away from Windows Phone over the last few years, such that its marketshare has diminished to critically low levels. Windows Phone is an endangered species. Can Windows Phone 7 reverse the trend?

In the beginning, we had Windows Mobile. Then came along Windows Phone 7 and we thought that was all. But almost everyone forgot Microsoft’s earlier acquisition of Danger, the company behind the Sidekick phones.

What Microsoft has done now is create a new Windows® Phone designed specifically for people who are actively navigating their social lives. What has been severally refered to as “Project Pink” has now been officially revealed as KIN.

KIN is a new social experience from Microsoft Corp. that combines the phone, online services and the PC. Designed for the socially connected consumer, and with unique features such as the Spot, the Loop and Studio, KIN helps you navigate your social life. It brings together who and what you love in a whole new way.

KIN is a product of collaboration between Microsoft, Sharp, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone.

From the Microsoft website:

REDMOND, Wash. — April 12, 2010 — Microsoft Corp. today announced KIN, a new Windows® Phone designed specifically for people who are actively navigating their social lives. Brought to life through partnerships with Verizon Wireless, Vodafone and Sharp Corporation, KIN is designed to be the ultimate social experience that blends the phone, online services and the PC with breakthrough new experiences called the Loop, Spot and Studio. KIN will be exclusively available from Verizon Wireless in the U.S. beginning in May and from Vodafone this autumn in Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

KIN is a new social experience from Microsoft Corp. that combines the phone, online services and the PC.

“Working closely with our partners, we saw an opportunity to design a mobile experience just for this social generation — a phone that makes it easy to share your life moment to moment,” said Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft. “We built KIN for people who live to be connected, share, express and relate to their friends and family. This social generation wants and needs more from their phone. KIN is the one place to get the stuff you care about to the people you care about most.”

A New Kind of Social Phone
With KIN, social networking is built into the fabric of the phone. KIN has a fun, simple interface, which is designed to help people publish the magazine of their life by making the people and stuff they love the focus rather than menus and icons. The unique hardware design was developed in partnership with Sharp to create a new kind of social phone. There are two models called KIN ONE and KIN TWO. Both phones feature a touch screen and slide-out keyboard. ONE is small and compact, making it a perfect fit for a pocket and to operate with one hand. TWO has a larger screen and keyboard, in addition to more memory, a higher resolution camera, and the ability to record high-definition video. The 5 and 8 megapixel cameras in ONE and TWO, respectively, are designed for use in low light with image stabilization and a bright LumiLED flash.

The New Way to Share
The home screen of the phone is called the KIN Loop, which is always up to date and always on, showing all the things happening in someone’s social world. KIN automatically brings together feeds from leading Microsoft and third-party services such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter all in one place, making it easier to stay connected. Customers can also select their favorite people, and KIN will automatically prioritize their status updates, messages, feeds and photos. Another unique feature, the KIN Spot is a new way for people to share what’s going on in their world. It lets them focus first on the people and stuff they want to share rather than the specific application they want to use. Videos, photos, text messages, Web pages, location and status updates are shared by simply dragging them to a single place on the phone called the Spot. Once all the people and content are in the Spot to share, the consumer can choose how to share, and start broadcasting.

Your Phone, on the Web
KIN Studio is your phone online. Almost everything created on the phone is available in the cloud from any Web browser. Photos and videos are freed from the confines of the phone and presented in an online visual timeline so they are easy to view and share. The KIN Studio automatically backs up texts, call history, photos, videos and contacts, and populates a personalized digital journal so it’s easy to go back in time to relive a crazy weekend or recent birthday. And the KIN Studio gives customers tons of storage to keep all those photos, videos, contacts and texts so they’ll never run out of space on their phone and lose a memory.

Music and More
KIN will be the first Windows Phone to feature a Zune experience — including music, video, FM radio and podcast playback. With a Zune Pass subscription, customers using Zune software on their PC can listen to millions of songs from Zune Marketplace on their KIN while on the go, or load their personal collection. KIN also has other features customers want in a phone including a rich browser with the ability to share pieces of the Web, local and Web search by Bing, and an RSS feed reader to pull down information on people and stories from the Web.

Two Kin devices have been announced – Kin One and Kin Two.

KIN One: 5 megapixel camera, 4GB built-in storage, no memory card slot, GPS receiver, Zune media player, and multi-touch

KIN Two: 8 megapixel camera with HD video recording and flash, 8 GB built-in memory, no memory card slot

Visit the KIN website and the KIN Virtual Presskit.